The 2004 Presidential Election

By mid-2004, with the United States facing a violent
insurgency in Iraq and considerable foreign opposition to
the war there, the country appeared as sharply divided as
it had been four years earlier. To challenge President
Bush, the Democrats nominated Senator John F. Kerry of
Massachusetts. Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam
veteran, his long experience in Washington, his dignified
demeanor, and his skills as a speaker all appeared to make
him the ideal candidate to unite his party. His initial
campaign strategy was to avoid deep Democratic divisions
over the war by emphasizing his personal record as a
Vietnam combatant who presumably could manage the Iraq
conflict better than Bush. The Republicans, however,
highlighted his apparently contradictory votes of first
authorizing the president to invade Iraq, then voting
against an important appropriation for the war. A group of
Vietnam veterans, moreover, attacked Kerry's military
record and subsequent anti-war activism.

Bush, by contrast, portrayed himself as frank and
consistent in speech and deed, a man of action willing to
take all necessary steps to protect the country. He
stressed his record of tax cuts and education reform and
appealed strongly to supporters of traditional values and
morality. Public opinion polls suggested that Kerry gained
some ground following the first of three debates, but the
challenger failed to erode the incumbent's core support. As
in 2000, Bush registered strong majorities among Americans
who attended religious services at least once a week and
increased from 2000 his majority among Christian
evangelical voters.

The organizational tempo of the campaign was as frenetic as
its rhetorical pace. Both sides excelled at getting out
their supporters; the total popular vote was approximately
20 percent higher than it had been in 2000. Bush won by 51
percent to 48 percent, with the remaining 1 percent going
to Ralph Nader and a number of other independent
candidates. Kerry seems to have been unsuccessful in
convincing a majority that he possessed a satisfactory
strategy to end the war. The Republicans also scored small,
but important gains in Congress.

As George W. Bush began his second term, the United States
faced challenges aplenty: the situation in Iraq, stresses
within the Atlantic alliance, in part over Iraq, increasing
budget deficits, the escalating cost of social
entitlements, and a shaky currency. The electorate remained
deeply divided. The United States in the past had thrived
on such crises. Whether it would in the future remained to
be seen.